Seeing the Invisible at San Diego Botanic Garden, Encinitas

by Patricia Frischer

El Anatsui - AG + BA (AR) The shadow of the rock and the slight lifting of the drapery as if disturbed by wind in this work make it truly magical. Don't forget to walk up close to see how pieces of aluminum or tin are joined with jump rings making this such an impressive piece of recycling. 

San Diego Botanic Garden (SDBG) in Encinitas is “showing” artworks created to enhance the real physical world. This augmented reality (AR)  exhibition Seeing the Invisible  includes works by 13 artists:  Ai Weiwei, El Anatsui, Mohammed Kazem, Sigalit Landau, Mel O'Callaghan, Isaac Julien CBE, Sarah Meyohas, Daito Manabe, Timur Si-Qin, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Pamela Rosenkranz,  Refik Anadol, and Ori Gersht. 

This means that as you wander through this exquisite garden, you use a smart device and the invisible becomes visible. Some of the artists present moving images, others images that you move through and around. Sound is supplied to enhance and sometimes challenges you. The garden supplies smells and touches of wind and sun. No I didn’t eat any of the fruit I saw, but it was tempting to make this a fully 5 senses experience. 

Nothing about this was static as you had to participate to get the full effect by moving your body and even interacting with others on the site. A few of the works were scary, others were meditative but they all involved you with a surprise of some sort and many engendered questions.

I know this was not intended to be a Halloween specific display, but put it on your to-do list of haunted properties. And go with friends and family, if you can, as like going to the movies in a real theater, the audience adds to the thrill. 

This show will premiere across 12 gardens in six countries simultaneously in September 2021 will be available for a whole year until August, 2022. So in our local venue the works might be seen in a coastal setting but somewhere else it might be in a forest. It is co-curated by Hadas Maor and Tal Michael Haring organized by Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.  At SDBG, the president and CEO Ari Novy started this process one years ago, but SDBG was lucky to hire Senior Director of Education and Visitor Services Tomoko Kuta who joined the staff in April and helped to plan each location for optimal viewing. 

Besides investigating the subjects of each of the works, this is a chance to explore the interplay of the physical world with the digital one. It aims to present nature AND digital instead of nature versus digital.

You need a smartphone or tablet to experience these work available to download from Apple App or Google Play App. The exhibition is included in the price of admittance to the gardens and free to members. If your device is not enabled, you can borrow an iphone from SDBG on a first come first serve basis. 

My great thanks to Lourdes Munoz  who escorted me around the display and to Ashley Grable who set up my tour. 

Ari Novy on his World of Bromeliads throne

Ai Weiwei - Stoll through a Gilded Cage with turnstiles which makes that familiar sound as you ratchet around the space.  Look up and yearn for freedom. Or consider yourself safely cocooned from the outside world but with a view. 

Sigalit Landau  - Salt Stalagmite #1 [Three Bridges] Walk all away a round this mountain of miniature waterfalls and moats, hear the water and glide over arches avoiding the barbed wire. This work is based on the idea of salt bridges from the Dead Sea serving to connect warring factions in the Middle East, resulting in peace. 

 

Mohammed Kazem - Directions (Zero) Sited on a dramatic overlook, this enormous zero looms up and over you but peer closely to see the writing on the surface are location of every country in the world. And visit often to see the ever changing color. 

 

Isaac Julien CBE - Stones Agaist Diamond is a slow walk through ice caves in Iceland. All side of these five screens are changing and relating to each other and you as you encircle the work. Slowly the images change, and overlap with your movement. The beauty of the ice is revealed as precious as diamonds. 

Mel O'Callaghan -Pneuma One of the most powerful of the works, this globe distorts your view of the bamboo where it is sited, But as you can move inside the image, the heavy breathing and pulsing of the shapes becomes truly ominous. 

 

Daito Manabe - Morphecore Prototype AR Does this figure look stilted? Just wait to  see him start to dance and as the frenetic pace increased, his limbs are more and more disjointed. Add to that, you can walk right through him and the pixels start to dissolve and then re-align.  The artist extracted MRI scans of his brain and used this raw data to determine the digital movement. 

Jakob Kudsk Steensen - Water Serpent Sorry not to have a better image of this wicked piece of dried out cactus with a giant coiling snake eye that is almost obscene as it follows where ever you go. The artists states that it has "positive spirits and omens of life." You decide, but sounds of water where they is none does give pause. 

Ori Gersht - Forget Me Not Yep, it looks like just a 17th century Dutch vase of flowers, but then as you come close, it explodes with a loud noise (big bang theory) and the individual flowers, petals, leaves, glass and insects are shot into the air and then float down. Makes you think about the state of our own environment. 

Pamela Rosenkranz - Anamazon (Limb) This ghoulish green limb grows out of a real bright green leafed plant, but looking closely at the base, you can see a weird green glop dripping onto the ground. Shades of the Wicked Witch meets Little Shop of Horrors as this could be plant or human arteries and veins.  

Refik Anadol - Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams AR This abstract painting comes to life, pulsing as if the artist's paint was alive and trying to escape the frame. The colors are beautiful and the shapes enticing. But the algorithm that generates this work is based on natural images. (68,986,479 million of them)!

Sarah Meyohas - Dawn Chorus A simple grand piano playing itself with keys moving and string vibrating but then the blue birds (of happiness?) whips through the scene. When I changed my stance I came face to face with one of these creatures. These birds are what I imagined Cinderella's seamstress birds were like as they outfitted her for the ball.  Are the birds conducting the music or is the music orchestrating the birds movement?

 

Timur Si-Qin -  Biome Gateway It is hard to remember you are standing in the middle of a parking lot as you enter this dark cave with florescent cave drawings on the walls. Suddenly a ellipse of light beckons you forward and you find yourself outside under a star filled night. Nope, it is still sunny and bright in the real world, but this is a strong shift in perspective.  

Some helpful tips to make the most of your visit:

• If you have not been to the Botanic Garden recently, there is a new entrance which is just a few block north from the old entrance. It is well marked and you park in a lot right next to the Dickenson Family glass conservatory. 
• When you download the app, swipe up to start, try to find the signs for each of the AG sites. The little blue direction cones help to orient you to the right direction.
• Put your sound level on high for the best experience. 
• The app will let you know when you are there and then follow the prompts.
• Try centering at different points of the same work especially if the sun is in your eyes.
• Move around and even through the works, Look up and down and go up close.
• If you smart device is not accepeted, borrow one of the loaner phones (which I had to do).
• Go back again on a day with different weather as the background is so much a part of the experience and the AG is available until August of 2022.
• Take water with you and make sure your device is chargedh!

Here are a few bonus images of the World of Bromeliads which was in the new Dickinson Family Education Conservatory. 

A wonderful tower of Bromeliads.

This wonderful new space can be used for all sorts of events. When the Bromeliads are gone, the large overhead displays can be lowered to fill the space or stay high to accommodate a large crowd. What a beautiful venue for a wedding!

San Diego Botanic Gardens

300 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas, CA 92024
Wednesday - Sunday 9 am - 5 pm (Closed Christmas)
Admission charges vary

visitorservices@sdbgarden.org 

760-436-3036 x231

Want more digital exhibitions: Digital Me opens to the public on Saturday, October 9 at the Fleet Science Center through January 9, 2022 and was created by Amir Schorr, produced by Madatech: The Israel National Museum of Science, Technology and Space. It lets you track your digital footprint in the world with over a dozen larger-than-life exhibits covering geolocation, facial recognition, Artificial Intelligence, computer vision, data privacy including some wacky Insta-filters. 

Introducing The Re-Visioned Mingei Museum

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

Inside the Mingei: the Frances Hamilton White Art Library, with Nakashima furniture on both sides of the glass wall.

At 9 o’clock on the sunless Friday morning preceding Labor Day weekend, there was sunshine in the hearts of more than 100 people gathered in Balboa Park’s Alcazar Garden, eagerly awaiting the grand re-opening of the Mingei International Museum, which has been undergoing major reconstruction for the past three years.

Besides representatives of local media, the crowd included supporters and friends of the Museum, and speakers included Mayor Todd Gloria and the two main movers and shakers of the project: Mingei Director/CEO Rob Sidner and architect Jennifer Luce. 

Rob Sidner addressing the crowd at the museum’s new West Entrance in Alcazar Garden, with the origami crane curtain behind him. Architect Jennifer Luce is second from left in the lineup of speakers, with the Niki de Sainte Phalle mosaic The Poet & His Muse spreading wings over all. (Niki’s beloved Nikigator has been on vacation at Liberty Station but will be back outside the main entrance soon.) 

Sidner, praised by all for his leadership, patience and spirit during the seven years of considering and implementing the museum’s transformation, spoke of the Three A’s they kept always in mind: Access, Art, and Architecture. “We invite visitors to explore, engage and connect with art and one another,” he said, noting that the main floor—the Commons, which would always have free admission—was meant to be a public living room where people can gather for good food and conversation.

He and Luce both stressed the idea of inclusiveness. “We can barely wait for you all to make this place your place,” said the architect. 

Decorating the new garden-side entrance was a curtain of origami cranes, made by museum volunteers. Origami cranes are said to symbolize success and good fortune, bringing in good energy with their folded-paper wings. Once speeches were over, the curtain was parted to let everyone in.

Not all of the many features of the new Mingei were on view inside. A number of the large-scale pieces designed to enhance the architecture—all commissioned from accomplished women artists—were not fully installed, and we weren’t able to see the lower level, with its high-design theater—formerly a loading dock—where Art of Elan would be performing that Sunday.

The handcrafted Artifact Restaurant Bar. (Note the ceiling, designed by Jennifer Luce.)

But as we walked into the building, the sense of spaciousness was overwhelming, a feeling that pervaded our entire half-hour stay before the doors were opened to the public. The Artifact restaurant was not diner-ready, but the 30-foot handcrafted bar was impressive. And the two new exhibitions upstairs—Global Spirit and Humble Spirit—had many delights, while the glass-fronted Art Library and the dramatic Founder’s Gallery gave us a chance to admire the craftsmanship of tables, chairs and benches from the studio of master woodworker George Nakashima (1905-1990) in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

The Global Spirit exhibition, featuring over 200 pieces of folk art from over 20 different countries.

Wooden armadillo, made in Brazil, part of the Global Spirit exhibit.

Mexican rooster, made of scrap metal, backed by other pieces from Global Spirit.

Indian elephant, made of papier mache and bamboo. (Global Spirit)

Tin Lantern from Mexico, Japanese cotton towels on wall, part of the Humble Spirit exhibit, showcasing notable art created from humble materials.

Lifesize figures of a late-20^th-century wedding party, made of papier mache and dung, from Bihar, India. (Humble Spirit)

Detail: Two figures from wedding party sculpture.

The Mingei’s 55-million-dollar renovation has so far raised $47 million from about 700 contributors—some giving as little as $5, some up to $15 million—and it’s definitely a place you’ll want to see for yourself. There are indoor and outdoor spaces to explore at your leisure, keeping an eye out for artful details on walls and ceilings. Artifact restaurant, opening in mid-October, promises to be a real palate-pleaser, and don’t miss the expansive park views from the upper decks. 

Entry to the Board Room, aka Founders Gallery.

In the Courtyard: Hand-twisted bronze picket fence by Jennifer Luce with A. Zahner/Zahner Labs. 

About the Mingei: Originally founded in 1978 by ceramicist/art professor Martha Longenecker (1920-2013), the Mingei began as a small space in University Towne Centre dedicated to Japanese folk art. Its name means “art of the people,” but over the years, it embraced the folk art of many cultures, and moved into Balboa Park in 1996. A nonprofit institution, the museum honors anonymous craftsmen from ancient times as well as contemporary designers, and welcomes over 100,000 visitors a year.

Mingei International Museum
HOURS: Sat-Wed, 10 am-5 pm. Thur-Fri, 10 am-8 pm.
ADMISSION: Adults: $14. Seniors, students, military: $10. Under age 18: Free.
Commons Level: Free to all. www.mingei.org

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has written about arts and lifestyle for the La Jolla Light and other local media for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net.